Hanway buyers go at it like rabbits

UK-based sales outfit HanWay has sold Rabbit Proof Fence, its Phillip Noyce-directed, Australian-set period story featuring Kenneth Branagh, to a brace of European markets including France and Germany.

Bac took the picture in France, while Odeon boarded for Germany. Sales completed in the run-up to London included Sandrews Metronome for Scandinavia. HanWay chief Thierry Wase-Bailey is also close to a Japanese sale.

Rabbit Proof was the first pick-up for Australia's recently formed Ocean Pictures, which will distribute it locally in conjunction with REP. Marking Australian-born Noyce's first project in his home country after 12 years in the US, the adaptation of Doris Pilkington's book follows three Aboriginal girls forcibly taken from their outback families in 1931 to be trained as servants as part of a government policy. They escape and set out on the 1,500-mile journey home, pursued by the authorities. The picture is currently in production.

HanWay also sold The Triumph Of Love to the increasingly aggressive Planeta for Spain. The Spanish media operation recently struck an output pact with United International Pictures (UIP) to handle local theatrical releases on its acquisitions. Triumph, directed by Clare Peploe and starring Mira Sorvino and Ben Kingsley, went to SMILE in Scandinavia.

Wase-Bailey anticipates a sales push at next year's AFM for the Coen brothers' To The White Sea, which has Brad Pitt attached. Other titles on HanWay's slate include Help I'm A Fish, which is still number one after two weeks in Denmark. The Euro animation film has grossed more than $921,000 so far from the Danish market.

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